Scott Carney

Maybe the rise of bullsh*t work isn't a bug, but it's a feature. In this week's video I explore how the anthropologist David Graeber thesis "On the Preponderance of Bullsh*t jobs" collides with the belief that AI is going to make boring repetitive work obsolete.

1 day ago | [YT] | 94

Scott Carney

I just uploaded a TON of legal files related to the lawsuit that Jordan Peterson's accountant filed against him over on Discord--including the original complaint as well as all of the subsequent fillings. Anyone who is a premium member on any of my platforms (substack/patreon/youtube) has access to the "investigators" section of Discord. I'm going over them myself, but love to see what the community pulls out. Link here: discord.com/channels/1113117293245898835/150737610…

2 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 457

Scott Carney

I'm thinking about a new video idea about how you can detect AI images, fake profiles and social media posts, but there are a few problems with it. First: the technology is advancing so fast that any tells that I spot right now will be obsolete in a vanishingly small amount of time. And, second, I'm worried that we might already be in a place where if you don't ALREADY know the person posting the content that there is almost no way to be sure that something is real or not. Along with Google's movement to get rid of website rankings in search in favor of AI summaries we may genuinely not be able to tell what is real and what is not anymore---at least not while using the tools that we have gotten used to using.

It could be that the only truth currency that will be left (for a while at least) will come from people who have been online since BEFORE the AI insurgency. I don't think people will ever look at my channel and assume that I'm AI because I have a 25 year record online and that can be verified by independent sources. However, a Scott Carney getting started today would have an almost impossible hurdle to jump over in proving the bare minimum piece of credibility--that he's actually human.

Ok, so that's what I'm thinking. What guides are you using to detect reality form unreality right now?

5 days ago | [YT] | 588

Scott Carney

This is the front page of Fox News right now. Do you notice any stories that they probably should have covered but just simply forgot to?

6 days ago | [YT] | 168

Scott Carney

New video out on Trump's $1.7 billion grift. https://youtu.be/JOjAYITVZrw

1 week ago | [YT] | 389

Scott Carney

Peter Thiel's AI-Powered Truth Machine is coming for you.

1 week ago | [YT] | 95

Scott Carney

It's time to talk about the secret history of mind control. The Evil Genius who invented propaganda and marketing: Edward Bernays.

1 week ago | [YT] | 80

Scott Carney

This morning I saw a comment from an insidious "doctor" on my channel that was promoting a "health book" that looks like it is spreading some pretty awful information. I decided to go deep and show where something that looks innocent on the surface leads down a rabbit hole lead funnel into conspiracy land. It's interesting to see these tactics playing out in real time.

1 week ago | [YT] | 238

Scott Carney

$$$ CONUNDRUM UPDATE: Lots of people weighted in on the comments in yesterday's post, and in emails to me, and on discord and everywhere else. There are a wide variety of opinions. I still haven't gotten the results back yet (I'm hoping tomorrow) but it seems to me that if it does turn out that the contents of the bottles check out, that it's inevitable that SOME people will ignore all the warnings that I put in the video about all the other problems with the company and the peptide industry and STILL use that company to purchase experimental cocktails to use on themselves. This means that the peptide company WILL earn more money--and without a commission going to another place, that my video could turn out to be incredibly profitable to them.

Here's my proposed solution: Instead of routing the profits of the discount code to fund my journalism (thousands to tens of thousands of dollars), I can instead send the money to a charity of this channel's choosing. Every year I usually donate a few thousand dollars to Bienvinedos FoodBank here in Colorado (bienvenidosfoodbank.org/) which is a cause that I believe that pretty much everyone should get behind. However, I could also put together some community voting to direct funds to other worthy causes.

This way you all can rest assured that the channel isn't compromised, but we can still do something good with the proceeds that would have simply otherwise gone to market more peptides.

What do you think?

1 week ago | [YT] | 55

Scott Carney

ETHICAL CONUNDRUM ALERT: A few weeks ago a peptide company reached out to me with a, sort of insane, proposition which indicates that they have NEVER watched my channel. They wrote that after Peptide Sciences was shut down that they intended to take over its marketshare. They wrote that they would send me $500 worth of Peptides for me to sponsor their product on my channel.

Not one to miss an opportunity, I told them that I would write them an honest review if they sent along the peptides. My plan was to send them to a lab to get them all tested. In their sponsor onboarding call they told me SO MANY shady things, and various kinds of fraud that they participated in. They also told me how much money I could make--I think it was 33% of all sales. Since the average order is $350 that means sponsors would make roughly $100 per sale.

I dropped the samples off at the university lab last week and I'm currently waiting on results. This report is going to be amazing. Either the peptides are not what they claim to be, or they are. IF they're not, the video is straightforward: I'm showing you how scammy the peptide market really is with lots of in and outs of the black market.

But if the peptides come back matching their claims then we enter into the ethical bind. Even if they are a scammy company -- the entire industry is pretty scammy -- so it's not just an indictment of them. And my video will likely lend them additional credibility as a brand because I'm going to accurately report my results.

In this scenario I could flash my discount code on the screen, or post the link in the chat, and make those sweet sweet peptide commissions to support the channel. I have no doubt I would rake in thousands if not tens of thousands in the process.

I think it's probably LEGAL for me to offer the code--but I'm going to have a chat with my lawyer just to be sure. I also think that anyone who watched the full video would have complete informed consent on what the company is all about--I never pull punches on my findings. The facts will be what they will be no matter what. Either way, if the peptides come back clean, people WILL go to the site to buy them.

So what do YOU think?

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 83